Architecture and Cities
Last week’s strategy: Sensory Hijack
The body believes what the mind resists.
Anyone try it? Did you make your audience physically uncomfortable — on purpose?
Week 4 gave you a new lens: timing changes everything.
The Duck Curve showed you that solar energy isn’t just about how much — it’s about when.
System boundaries aren’t just spatial — they’re temporal. And that matters even more when you scale up to cities.
Last week: “When does the energy flow?”
This week: “What did we build — and what does it cost the planet?”
Same systems thinking. Biggest system boundary yet.
A city is the ultimate system — energy, water, waste, transport, people — all interacting inside a boundary of concrete and glass that traps heat, consumes resources, and reshapes the climate around it.
Your toolkit is growing: Spectacle Formula → Complexity → System Boundaries → Timing → now: the built environment as climate actor.
This is what a city looks like to a thermometer.
PRO-CLIMATE
= Redesign the City
= “Density done right saves the planet”
PRO-DEVELOPMENT
= Build for Growth
= “Cities drive prosperity — don’t slow them down”
| PRO-CLIMATE | PRO-DEVELOPMENT |
|---|---|
| Green infrastructure mandatory | Economic growth comes first |
| Compact cities, less sprawl | Expand to meet demand |
| Regulate building emissions | Incentivize, don’t restrict |
| Retrofit old buildings | Build new efficient ones |
Keep this tension in mind. It’ll shape everything we discuss today.
Cities cover just 3% of the Earth’s land surface.
They produce over 70% of global CO₂ emissions.
And consume 78% of the world’s energy.
The built environment isn’t just affected by climate change. It’s driving it.
By 2050, 68% of the world’s population will live in cities (UN)
NYC’s Central Park can be up to 5°C cooler than the streets just 200 metres away — same day, same city
Vienna turns 250,000 tonnes of garbage into heat for 60,000 homes — in a building designed by an artist
Hong Kong buildings account for over 60% of the city’s electricity consumption — and 90% of that electricity comes from fossil fuels
Anthropogenic: of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature.
You’ve heard this in Week 2 (food systems), Week 3 (fashion), Week 4 (energy).
But this week it becomes architectural. The question isn’t just what we consume — it’s what we build.
Buildings don’t just use energy. They shape the microclimate of the city around them.
Metropolis (1927)
A film set in the year 2026.
That’s… this year.
Fritz Lang imagined a city of towering skyscrapers, underground workers, and a society split between those who plan and those who labour.
How wrong was he?
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) — a vision of the year 2026
Characteristics:
Challenges:
The metropolis is a climate problem and a climate solution. That’s the paradox.
Definition: The process of metropolitan residents moving out.
Known causes:
Impact:
When people flee cities, does the climate problem follow them — or just spread out?
Every surface you see in a city — concrete, glass, asphalt, steel — absorbs heat during the day and radiates it at night.
This makes metropolitan areas 1–3°C hotter than surrounding rural areas.
That’s not weather. That’s architecture.
This is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect — and it’s why your city is literally hotter than the countryside.
It’s not just discomfort. The UHI effect triggers a cascade:
This is a positive feedback loop. The hotter the city gets, the more energy it uses to cool down, which makes it hotter.
UHI is Week 10’s “systems thinking” in miniature. Remember this when we get there.
Vox (~7 min). Thermal cameras reveal Phoenix’s UHI. The twist: wealthy neighbourhoods are cooler than poor ones. Heat is an inequality problem.
3% of land.
70% of CO₂.
That’s cities. That’s us.
Five ways growing architecture affects climate:
| Impact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Urban Heat Island | Concrete & glass trap heat; cities 1–3°C hotter |
| Energy Consumption | Per capita energy demand concentrates in cities |
| Transportation Emissions | Cities as logistics hubs — commuting, freight |
| Waste Management | More waste per area; burning → GHG; landfills → methane |
| Water Scarcity | Large, concentrated demands strain supply |
Central Park from above — a 3.4 km² green rectangle holding back the heat of Manhattan.
NYC’s population has remained relatively steady despite everything — because of:
The city continues to attract people due to its unique combination of known and unknown opportunity.
But here’s the thing: NYC’s Central Park — 3.4 km² of green — drops the temperature around it by up to 5°C compared to Midtown. One park. Five degrees.
How it works:
Why it matters:
But is burning waste really “clean”? That depends on where you draw the system boundary. (Sound familiar?)
Spittelau waste incineration plant, Vienna — redesigned by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. An incinerator that people want to visit.
A 1960s incinerator, redesigned in the 1980s by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
The numbers:
An incinerator that people want to visit. A tourist attraction. Architecture solving a climate problem while looking good doing it.
Ivanhoe Reservoir, Los Angeles — 96 million shade balls deployed to reduce evaporation during California’s drought.
LA’s approach to water scarcity — a preview of what many cities will face:
Notice: these are a mix of individual behaviour change and structural incentives. That tension will explode in Week 6 when we talk about capitalism.
What/how/why might you care about this topic?
HeGang (鶴崗) in China: a city where apartments cost less than a phone. Is that the future — or just urban decay with a viral marketing campaign?
“This house believes that Hong Kong should prioritise green retrofitting of existing buildings over new development to meet its 2050 carbon neutrality target.”
PRO-CLIMATE: Retrofit first — new builds are carbon-heavy.
PRO-DEVELOPMENT: Build new, build efficient — retrofitting old buildings is a money pit.
Issues and Actions Proposed:
Issues and Actions Proposed:
Before this week, “climate change” might have felt like an atmosphere problem.
Now you know: every building is a climate decision.
Your portable takeaway: The built environment isn’t background — it’s the biggest system boundary we’ve seen yet.
Realtors show you a terrible, overpriced house first.
The second house — still overpriced — looks reasonable.
You don’t evaluate houses. You evaluate differences from the anchor.
This is Anchoring (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).
The first number you hear distorts all subsequent judgment — even when it’s obviously irrelevant.
In experiments, people estimated higher values after spinning a random wheel with higher numbers.
The brain cannot ignore the anchor.
When someone opened with an extreme number:
“AI could consume 30% of global electricity by 2040. Even the conservative estimate is 12%.”
Now 12% sounds reasonable. But 12% is still catastrophic.
The anchor did its job.
Lead with the extreme. Then offer the “reasonable” version.
Set the anchor before they do.